Saatchi Yates presents the first solo exhibition at the gallery by contemporary painter Joanna van Son. The exhibition introduces a new body of paintings that revolve around the artist’s intimate fascination with her partner, Lilah Yektai, capturing a vibrant and emotionally charged moment in their shared life. Produced after van Son’s residency at the Rubell Museum in Florida and shortly before the artist’s upcoming wedding, the works reflect a period of personal transition and creative intensity.
A key element in van Son’s practice is the close relationship between drawing and painting. Having studied architecture at The Bartlett School of Architecture, drawing has long been central to her compositional thinking. In these new works, however, the role of drawing evolves beyond preliminary structure.
Rather than concealing the initial sketches beneath layers of paint, van Son deliberately leaves them visible on the canvas. This decision introduces a raw sense of vulnerability not through the exposure of the body, but through the exposure of the creative process itself. The drawings begin and end within the space of the painting, becoming an integral part of its visual and emotional architecture.
Built through thick impasto layers, the paintings present fluid portraits of both the artist and Lilah. The figures emerge, dissolve, and reappear within the painted surface, subtly challenging the conventional roles of model, muse, and artist.
Colour plays a central role in van Son’s expanding visual language. Soft creams, pinks, purples, ochres, greens, and reds construct a distinctive chromatic environment that feels deeply personal to the artist. Through carefully layered paint, these tones form textured surfaces that sit atop sewn and visible canvases, emphasizing the physicality of the medium.
By working with a relatively restrained palette, van Son manages to both capture the viewer’s attention and subtly reference the traditions of art history.
Although largely self-taught as a painter, van Son’s influences reach across centuries. The dramatic use of light and colour seen in the works of Caravaggio and the Dutch masters resonates in her compositions. At the same time, artists such as JoaquÃn Sorolla, Jackson Pollock, Cecily Brown, and Chaim Soutine inform her energetic approach to paint and gesture.
Her work Señora de Sorolla (2025) offers a direct dialogue with Sorolla’s 1906 portrait of his wife. While Sorolla painted his partner as both confidant and muse, van Son reinterprets this historical gesture by turning her attention to Lilah, who occupies a similarly central role within her own life and artistic practice.
Van Son’s paintings exist at the intersection of process and storytelling. Some works feel spontaneous, almost like pages torn from a sketchbook, while others evoke imagined narratives reminiscent of sacred or mythic imagery.
Rather than presenting fully resolved scenes, the paintings invite viewers into a moment of becoming somewhere between instinct and intention. This openness allows the works to feel both deeply personal and universally resonant.
Born in 2000 in Oman, Joanna van Son currently lives and works in London with her partner Lilah Yektai. Trained in architecture, she approaches painting through a spatial and structural understanding of the body.
Her studio functions as a stage where intimate portraits of Lilah unfold within the surrounding environment. In these works, the female figure often dissolves into the room itself into gradients of light, shadow, and fields of colour reimagining traditional portraiture through a contemporary and experimental lens.
